Bad Fruit (Poem)

Bad Fruit

Whole orange has no sharp edges,
no bones to bend round, no core

to cut from middle out. Its thick scent
holds firm behind leathered bitter rind,

nature's container of plumped and tender flesh,
ten carpels threaded with a clingy pith,

and seeded. Uncut, the pebbly shield
whose color gives it name betrays no rot

of essence, but subject to a winter's freeze,
orange sours without a change of face, the taste

of juice on tongue as sharp as words loosed
before the morning's glass is raised. Not

praised for what these wedges were, sweet
meat yielding pips into hands from squeeze,

but for the ways we swear to what we cannot
see: the damage that happens all too naturally.

© 2011 Maureen E. Doallas